


The Thing About Family

by Spookycakes



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Fanon Backstory, Found Family, Gen, Other, Past Family Death, Sappy Ending, sad fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 02:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17799617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spookycakes/pseuds/Spookycakes
Summary: Mei finds something of Roadhog's thought to have been lost forever. With a little annoying persistence from Junkrat, they find out that some things aren't ever really lost forever, one-man apocalypse or not.





	The Thing About Family

Mei had just started on her ninth straight hour of staring into the intense blue light of her monitors. While the eyestrain was painful, it was necessary to stave off a recent enemy of hers- sleep. Scouring research on the changes in the sun's radiation intensity as it reached Earth’s surface over the decades proved to be quite the long and involved task she needed to occupy her mind. She had spent six of the past nine hours collecting and entering data from various countries’ archived meteorological reports and climatology journals. 

Her tea had chilled. 

Snowball flashed, asking in its own way if she wanted another cup with a few “whirr”’s and a questioning “boop?”

Mei giggled at her helpful little friend and pat it on the head, “just one more article and then we can take a break. Ok, Snowball?”

Snowball’s digital lights danced into smiling eyes.

Flipping open a digital copy of an old Australian climate journal on the touchscreen, Mei traced her finger down the contents and tapped on the article on the country’s new-at-the-time solar farming industry. She skimmed the first page looking for the data she needed and some reliable sources to follow when a name in brackets caught her eye.

[Pictured right: Mako and Sirena Rutledge with their daughter on their solar farm in the rural Outback]. It was dated nearly 28 years ago. 

“Mako Rutledge,” Mei mused more to herself, but Snowball responded with a “ba-woop?”  
Intrigued, her eyes shifted to the right to the photograph of a young family posed in front of old solar farming equipment. The man in the photo most definitely was Roadhog: he was immense, over seven feet tall and though the man didn’t have nearly as much fat on him as her teammate did now, he was still built like a mountain with barrel-like arms and a thick waist - a force surely to be reckoned with just as much as he was today. The man in the photo wore no mask, the first time Mei had ever seen him without it. He had a squared and clean-shaven face, slightly close-together eyes and turned-up nose. A smile cracked across his squared jaw, proud, strong, and happy. 

Mako Rutledge in the photo had one huge arm around a curvy, equally proud-looking woman who could only have been Sirena with high cheekbones and her thick hair in braids. She had one hand on an obviously pregnant belly and she beamed at the photographer. In Mako’s other arm, a rambunctious toddler was futilely trying to squirm out of her father’s embrace, a smile just like her father’s lighting up her tiny features. 

“Oh my gosh, Snowball! I can’t believe it...” Mei continued to stare at the photo, questions bubbling to her mind. Roadhog never brought up his family. She didn’t even know he’d had one. The man had always been silent about his past.

Had it been one of her close friends, she would have run to show off the photo that had been buried for nearly three decades. However, this was Roadhog. Who knows, things could have soured between him and his wife, a good reason never to talk about her. A lot can happen over such a long span of time. 

And don't I know it, Mei thought to herself. She leaned back with a sigh. Best to leave it and not bring this up.

“Whrrr-rr?”

Mei snapped out of it her daze. She smiled at her floating companion. “Okay, Snowball. Time for that break!” 

With a stretch and a swipe of her finger, she transferred the article she was reading to her tablet. Another stretch, and with tablet and mug in hand, she was off on a midnight trip to the Watchpoint’s kitchen. 

____

The tea kettle was left cold on the industrial stovetop, unusual for the number of tea drinkers that resided on base. Mei placed her tablet and mug on the counter and turned to fill the kettle. 

Snowball floated as if to inspect the kettle with a happy beep. Even though it couldn’t drink the tea, it still enjoyed the breaks. Mei took a seat at a counter and took a deep breath, enjoying the quiet of the base at night. Snowball followed as though copying Mei. She giggled at her friend. 

The relaxing lasted hardly a minute. A lanky figure that would have otherwise been tall hunched in the kitchen doorway, an empty coffee pot in his filthy hand. She could swear she saw the soot wafting off of him as if he had just come from a fire. He probably had, she reminded herself. Her mood soured. 

She groaned and rolled her eyes. Of all the people on base that could have sauntered into the kitchen at night, it had to be him. Junkrat. Of course. 

“Oh, wot now?” the obnoxious criminal barked at her, thunking the pot into the sink and turning on the tap. It frazzled her how she could hear the ear-to-ear grin on his face, dripping with his Australian accent. “Ain’t even done anythin’!”

“I didn't say anything,” she said in her iciest tone, internally kicking herself. Why did she always have to engage him? Why did she always take the bait?

“Yeah ya certainly did!” Junkrat pointed and gestured animatedly, illustrating his point as he poured water into the coffee maker, “what with the scoff an’ the eye rollin’ an’ what have you.” He jabbed at the ‘on’ switch and slammed the pot in place so hard, Mei was surprised it didn't shatter. “What do ya want?”

“Why would I want anything from you?” her hands were on her hips now. 

“Come on, I see it comin’” he watched the brew start to trickle into the pot. “You got some big ole bloody lecture on th’ tip of yer tongue on how I'm horrible or somethin’. Come on! Out with it already!” 

Don’t take the bait, Mei! One calming breath, then another. “Just. Shut up.” She snapped up her tablet and silently begged for her water to boil. At the time, it seemed a nice gesture to fill it up in case any other late night wanderers wanted tea. Now she cursed herself for it. Punishment for being kind, she supposed.

The coffee maker huffed and sputtered before her kettle even began to whistle. Junkrat grabbed a crumpled bag of sugar from the cupboard and shook some into the pot before drinking directly from it. 

Mei tried not to look at him directly. She attempted to distract herself with the solar farming article. Don't engage. But she couldn't help but feel her nose crinkle.

He meandered over and leaned against the counter next to her, still drinking from the pot. 

She tried her very best to ignore him but she could feel her teeth clench and her shoulders square with his every gulping sip.

“What!?” she pulled the tablet away from her face and looked up, but not at him. 

“Still waitin’ on that talkin’ to I probably got comin’.”

She let out a string of curses in Mandarin and she could feel his self-satisfied grin at her back. 

The kettle started to whistle. “Finally!” she left the tablet on the counter to go fix her mug of tea. A sense of relief seemed to pour out of her like the steam from the kettle.

“Wot’s this, then?”

“Don't touch my things,” she said calmly, but the clang of the kettle back onto the stove clearly punctuated her point. 

“Weren’t touchin’ nothin’! Just lookin’. Ya know? With me eyes? Who's the pig-face? Looks like Roadie,” he said off-handedly, taking another gulp from the pot. 

Mei stirred her tea for a second. “Probably because it is,” she said quietly.

“What?!” his shout echoed throughout the kitchen and clunked down the half-full coffee pot. He snapped up the tablet, holding it inches from his nose. He gasped in one of the most dramatic lungfuls of air she had ever heard.

“It’s amazing how selective your hearing is,” Mei’s hands were back on her hips. “Please, you’re getting your dirty fingerprints all over m--”

“Where’d ya find this, Snowflake?” the blue from the screen lit up his wide eyes as they darted back and forth over the image. 

Mei had never seen the impulsive junker like this. The only things she ever saw him put this much focus into were inevitably blown up. He couldn’t possibly blow up her tablet right in his mismatched hands, could he? Still, the worry nagged at the back of her skull. But something about his awed, unblinking expression tugged a little somewhere in her chest. “I-it’s just an old solar energy article I found in a scientific journal.”

“That's roight…” he said quieter than she’d ever heard him before. He didn’t take his eyes from the screen. “They were solar farmers they were. They look just like I remember…”

“You’ve met them?”

“No, shoulda - “ he shook his head and scratched the side with his mechanical hand, “I shoulda said ‘imagined’. Never met ‘em. Feel like I know ‘em though. I do.” 

Mei found herself abandoning her tea and moving closer. It felt like the old photo was calling back to her, too. She wanted to see what it was about it that made Junkrat look like that. Looking down again at the photo he was studying, he pointed, “That’s Sirena. Couldn’t ‘a cooked for shit but dun’ matter. She told good jokes and really held her liquor,” he continued on as though introducing them, “an’ little Charley. Always gettin’ in trouble. She was always keepin’ her mum an’ dad on their toes. An’ look!” He pointed at Sirena’s belly, “even Kai’s in there. Not even born yet!” he giggled. He finally looked up at Mei, eyes still wide, “you show Roadie this yet?”

“I didn’t think he’d - I didn’t know the situation. I wasn’t sure if it’d be, you know, appropriate… What happened?” she wanted to add “to them” but cut herself off.

Junkrat gave a slight shrug and looked back down at the photo again. “Died. Omnium fallout. Bots. You know how it is.” He had said it without much emotion. It had happened to a lot of people in Australia - more than any officials could ever place an official count. It was just a part of life back then. “We have to show Roadhog this! He’s going to absolutely lose it! Don’t have no pictures or nothin’ after everythin’ that happened!”

“Wait a minute! This isn’t going to upset him, is it?”

“‘Course not! C’mon, Snowflake,” he grabbed her by the wrist and started to hurry her out of the kitchen, screen still lit up in his mechanical hand. 

She dug her heels in place and pulled her wrist back to cross her arms. “Wait,” she demanded. “I swear if this is some kind of - of sick joke or something -”

Junkrat pulled himself to his full height, squaring his shoulders like he usually did when he fought back with her. He hardly ever had to look intimidating with anyone else, but with the small scientist, he usually felt the need in order to be on level with her. “‘Course this ain’t no joke, Snowflake! Wot kinda person ya take me for?”

Her arms still crossed, she raised an eyebrow over the frame of her glasses. “A terrible one.”

“Back to that again, eh?” He theatrically rolled his eyes using his entire head and he slacked his arms in frustrated anger. Mei winced, worried for her tablet still in his hand. “C’mon, Snowflake that's terrible - you’re the terrible one here! Man hasn’t set eyes on his loved ones in twenty-odd years and yer sittin’ here sayin’ ‘no’. That’s cold!”

Mei paused, wanting to argue. She certainly knew how it felt to lose loved ones. She, however still had photos, videos, social media pages and the like all saved digitally. She thought about how losing all of that would cause a black hole in her heart. Was that what Roadhog felt for all this time? Feeling herself visibly softening in front of the man she was arguing with, she stiffened, snapping her gaze right back to him. “If this is a joke, you’re getting an icicle straight through your skull!” 

“Foine!” And with that, he again snapped up her wrist and escorted her down the hall towards the dorms, Snowball left whirring in the kitchen with the tea kettle. 

\---

“Oi! Roadhog!” Junkrat rapped on the door with his metal hand, “Roadie! Open up!”

“Shhh!” Mei hid behind the tall junker. He was making so much noise, “what if you’re waking him up? You’re going to wake everyone up!”

Junkrat waved her off, “nah, no one sleeps round this place. Ain’t ya figured that out yet?”

The door crashed open with a WHAM and Mei cowered even more behind Junkrat. 

Roadhog only grunted a single syllable that somehow managed to be both a question and a threat. 

Mei’s heart felt like it was going to explode. Junkrat, however, was unphased. He turned, pressing the tablet back into her hands and leaving her completely exposed to the larger junker’s wrath. Traitor, she thought. 

“Uhh.. well.. If it’s not a good time I-I- we…”

“Got my attention.”

She could feel her heart in her throat and the cold sweat drenching her palms. Was it the whiplash going from anger to fear that was making it feel like her brain was swimming in her skull? Mei looked down and hugged the slender tablet to her chest as though that would protect her. “I really don’t mean to upset you,” the words babbled quickly out of her dry mouth, “i-it’s certainly n-not my intention…”

“Ain’t got all day.”

Mei did not realize Junkrat was practically bouncing, his bubbly eagerness contrasting with her dread. Giving her a less-than-gentle nudge in her upper arm with his elbow, “c’mon show him! Lookie what she found, Roadie!”

Slowly, gently, she turned the tablet away from her, proffering it screen-first. She saw the image re-adjust itself as she tilted the screen towards the enormous man, still taking up the entirety of the doorway.

Nothing happened. For a tortuous minute of silence, nothing happened.

Glancing up, she first saw the massive hands - one alone of which could have crushed her skull easily - take the screen from her shaking hands into his own. 

They were shaking, too.

The silence was finally broken with a rattling breath from Roadhog.

“Look! Look! Look!” Junkrat was at Roadhog’s should now, pointing eagerly. “It’s Sirena and Charl-”

“Shut up.” The words lacked the usual edge when directed at his younger companion. Another rattling breath.. His large fingers gently touched the screen.

She felt her fear melt away. This meant so much to him, seeing his family after all this time. Maybe she really had misjudged.

Mei realized she was staring. She modestly bowed her head, hoping to give him some semblance of privacy. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said quietly.

“Nah,” the older junker said, giving two more rattling breaths, the second of which sounded different, almost like the fading sound of a sob. “Just realized. Didn’t lose ‘em. Thought I did.” He pointed to the left side of his chest, “thing about families.”

“See?” Junkrat put his hands smugly on his hips. “Told ya!”

“If you want,” Mei said, ignoring Junkrat’s boast, “I could have Athena print out the photo, Mr - Mr. Roadhog?”

“Yeah!” Junkrat burst in, “we’ll get a proper frame an’ everything!”

Mei sighed at the mention of “we.”

The larger junker nodded at this. He continued to study the photo for a few more moments as Junkrat raddled off plans for going into town first thing for the biggest poshest frame he could swipe.

Mei could only watch in silence as Roadhog carefully handed the tablet back to Mei. “Thank you,” she said. 

“Nah.”

\--- 

Mei selected the photo and had the image sent to her office as she walked back down the corridor. Junkrat’s voice echoed around her - she swore he was really trying to wake up everyone at the Watchpoint - as he annoyingly followed her.

She turned to snap at him, but before she could, Junkrat caught her gaze and immediately stopped in the middle of what he was going on about and said, “that was REALLY great back there, Snowflake!” Once again, his face cracked with a grin, but this time, it was different. Or was it? It didn't make her want to scold him, at any rate. 

“What?” She shook her head, “I didn’t do anything.”

He matched her pace now. “Nah, ya really did! Y’know,” Junkrat tapped on the screen with his metal fingers, “they’re the reason we joined Overwatch, Hog an’ me.” 

Mei realized the usual bristle of anger she felt whenever he was too near did not stir within her. “Really?” She tried to sound skeptical. 

“Yeah,” he nodded, actually looking serious for once, “said when the world went to shit, he didn’t think no one deserved to be happy again, ‘specially him. Changed his mind, though. Thought we could do some good for once ‘stead of makin’ the world even shittier. And well, y’know?” He shrugged, “now we’re here. Like a happy family with the rest of this bunch of misfits and freaks.”

Mei nodded again. 

He turned to continue hobbling down the corridor. 

“Junk-- Jamie, wait!” She stammered, but she’d already been brave once that night, she figured she’d risk it again. Still, it sounded weird coming from her voice.

He stopped, pausing before turning around. Maybe he’d thought it weird, too? He raised both eyebrows in confusion when he looked at her.

“I was wrong. Maybe you’re not so terrible.”

That grin that used to annoy her cracked across his face. “And maybe ya ain’t so cold, Snowflake.”

 

\----  
The framed photo had been left outside his door later that morning. Mako held it in his large hands. He never thought he’d shed tears again for them. He didn’t think he could. Sometimes he worried that they were gone forever, even from his memories. But they were still there, in his memory and his heart. And he’d still fight for them. And the rest of his family.

He placed it on the shelf of the spartan room, where a collection of other photos sat and were pinned. A picture of him passed out on the sofa under a mountain of pachimari toys of varying sizes while Junkrat and Hana posed victoriously, a photo of Morrison and Ana side by side at the firing range, one of Winston and Mei taking a quick break to pose after working hard in the lab, Lucio holding up finger guns while next to McCree holding up actual guns, Lena red-faced and straining to lift a mini barbell while Zarya held up a massive version with one arm…

Thing about families… he’d thought. You don’t lose them, ever. They only grow.


End file.
